


What makes you angriest?

by JohnHHolliday (Methleigh)



Category: 19th Century US RPF
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-20
Updated: 2012-05-20
Packaged: 2017-11-05 17:37:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/409168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Methleigh/pseuds/JohnHHolliday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John briefly list a few betrayals.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What makes you angriest?

That is an easy question to answer.  
There is something that surely angers me beyond mere emotion, in righteous offence.  
Betrayal.  
I am not guilty, have not been guilty, of this above all.  
But I have been betrayed, and I have met betrayal. It is the worst evil in this world. I do not count errors in judgement. For betrayal, there must be a certain trust, a rare commodity. And there must be intent to destroy that trust while it is held.

  * The first betrayal was that which led to the war. I will leave that for now also, for the world is strange now and so much has been forgotten. \- I was a child, so young, so free, all the world before me in my beloved Georgia, all my family, food, health - everything. I could do nothing but live and help my family, my people, my world to live also.
  * The second was my father, who betrayed my mama's memory, my uncles and aunts, the family we had all been, and I. \- I left as soon as I could, to my uncle, my cousins, school, and again an attempt at life.
  * The third was Kate, who lied to Behan and everyone about the Benson stage robbery, and would have had me killed in Tombstone. \- I gave her $1000 to leave town, and I never saw her again. Wyatt helped me.
  * The fourth was Ike Clanton. He did not betray me, but he tried to betray my friend Billy Leonard. He did his very worst. \- We all know the result of that little fiasco.
  * The fifth was the men who shot Virgil and Morgan unaware. \- We did our best, Wyatt and I, and the others.
  * The sixth was the man who tried to shake me down in Denver, to take advantage of my kindness to a poor boy. \- You do not hear much about him now, do you?
  * The seventh was Billy Allen in Leadville, who tried to kill me for old grievance under seemingly innocent pretext. \- I tried to kill him, to defend myself, surely, but I was still filled with the old anger, ill as I was.



I met each of these with courage and rage. Sometimes I feel like St. Michael, with the scales in one hand to judge the unworthy, and a Lightning in the other, in place of a sword, to send them to Hell. It is true; I did not literally kill them all. But they died to me, and I sent them all to Hell nonetheless, and there is no doubt in my mind that they arrived there, eventually. I left Georgia and I left Wyatt. I do not think that was because I was betrayed or betraying, exactly. Perhaps I was punishing myself for the seeds of it within me. Perhaps I was prudently preventing myself from doing what I would later regret. There are contradictions, sometimes. A choice between two evils. Sometimes I have decided in a split second. Sometimes I have hesitated slightly, and the further thought required on such occasions always firms my resolve and steadies my hand. Sometimes I have removed myself rather than choose which harm to take unto my cause. Loyalty above all! But that love and duty sometimes demands one relinquish one's own honour. Or - I will swallow my arrogance and admit it - relinquish what one would hold to in one's own pure selfishness. And I sometimes cannot do it, cannot bear it. There are times when I have been human, after all. There are those who would pick other occasions as fingerposts to this fact, but they are wrong.


End file.
